WNBA Chicago Sky Player Officially Comes Out

Women’s National Basketball Association Chicago Sky guard Sharnee Zoll-Norman announced she is lesbian in an interview with Chicago’s LGBT newspaper, the Windy City Times.

Although Zoll-Norman, who formally played for the Los Angeles Sparks, is married and has talked about her wife in interviews, she’s never officially come out until now.

"It’s never been printed," she told the publication. "I never felt whether I’m gay, straight, bi, [or] whatever that my sexuality had anything to do with me as a basketball player, and I don’t think it necessarily has anything to do with me as a person," she said. "If I was straight, I wouldn’t have to come out and say that I was straight."

In the interview, Zoll-Norma discusses her daily life as an out lesbian and about her first Pride event.

"Obviously, being a lesbian woman, Pride is something that you take pride in, no pun intended; you get excited to go to something like this, to be surrounded by people who are proud to be like you," she said. "You go there and don’t have to feel uncomfortable; you don’t feel like you’re being judged. To go and represent myself, my family and the [Chicago] Sky is an amazing opportunity."

Zoll-Norma and her wife, Serita Norman, have been together for nearly five years and married for almost four.

"I think we instantly had a connection," the athlete said. "I don’t want to say it necessarily was love-at-first-sight because it took us a while, but once we met each other and went out on our first date, we have talked every day since-be it on the phone, via Skype, via text, every day since August 25, 2008."

She also commented on the Supreme Court striking down the Defense of Marriage Act and said she doesn’t believe same-sex couples are different from heterosexual couples.

"I don’t think I should have different rights because I’m in love with a woman. I’m really glad and happy to see that America has voted this way. I really feel it’s an equality issue. It’s not a same-sex issue, or a heterosexual issue. We’re all people and we all should be equal in those terms, equal to love whoever we want."

In April, Brittney Griner, a top WNBA draft pic, came out and made headlines in early May after she said that her college basketball coach told players not to reveal their sexual orientation because it would hurt their chances of being recruited and make the school’s program look bad.

Forty gay couples in South Dakota applied to be married during the first month following a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized such unions across the country, according to data provided by the state Department of Health.